Monthly Archives: April 2010

A view not spoiled

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‘We don’t want offshore windmills,’ they said. ‘They ruin the natural beauty of the island.  And they will interfere without sunrise ceremonies.’

I had found these to be reasonable objections to the windmill farm off Cape Cod.  My mind’s eye pictured hundreds of the things whirling away in the surf, casting shadows over the beach, harshing the mellow of a sunrise ritual … yeah I can see that.

Then I found this.

This is a ruined view. From http://www.capewind.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticl

Are you f***ing kidding me?

This is not a spoiled view.  This is not going to interfere with a sunrise ritual. 

This is people who want teevee, ipods, cheap electricity in a never-was 18th century New England Shangri-La.

Life is not a Maxfield Parrish painting.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Tory Green

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Nononono . . . not the kinda-sorta-conservative political part of that entity formerly known as Great Britain, and usually prefaced with the adjectives ‘hidebound’ and ‘reactionary’ . . . but those citizens of the 13 British colonies distributed along the east coast of the North American continent, two centuries and change ago. Those who disliked the thought of independence, of having their comfortable apple-cart upset, who liked the way of things as they were, and trusted above all that the Crown divinely appointed, of course. They trusted the Crown, of course. They trusted the Crown’s duly selected, and properly credentialed authorities to Know What Is Best for All, most especially what is best for the upstart, uncultured and amateur rabble. Who, being poor, unwashed, uneducated and singularly bereft of connection to as well as the friendship of Important People at Court, as well as their Pet Intellectuals (certified to have had all their shots and been properly neutered and de-clawed) were in desperate need of the guidance of their betters.

Such rebellious rabble were to be severely chastised if they had the gall to reject said guidance, for of course, those proffering such guidance had pure and noble motives, uncontaminated by any thought of gain or personal advancement. (Yeah, I know – a bit of a straw-man there, but I am having fun with it – indulge me.) Of course, looking at the mighty establishment of an Empire, (even if in a nascent form) and about two thousand years (or even longer!) of habitual deferment to the Big Guy with the Nice Shiny Sword, the Bigger Army and the Well-organized Establishment – certainly at least a third of the American colonists could do the political math. Bow to the Big Guy, acknowledge his authority, timorously attempt to ameliorate the worst aspects of his policies, sigh and throw up your hands and call it a day when your feeble attempt is rebuffed. You tried – and good intentions trump all. Good intentions count more than eventual results. That’s life under an aristocracy/oligarchy. The well-intentioned aristos and intellectuals retreat to their comforts and wring their hands. All that counts in this version of the exercise is good intentions and meaning well, feebly. Am I a bitch for snarling something rude therefore, concerning the traditional paving materiel used for the off-ramp to the Judeo-Christian theoretical concept known as Hell? Yeah, probably so: adjust. For I am a quiet rebel, and now I recognize my own, very well. And I have also begun to recognize my enemies, the new Tories.

In the words of a very astute observer at the Belmont Club,

There is a huge reserve of strength and good will in the American people. It is literally the only force on this planet with the ability to turn the ship around. The “ruling class” won’t do it. The “moneyed class” won’t do it. The “chattering class” won’t do it. The “intellectual class” won’t do it. It will be the tens of millions of productive citizens who – with the help of modern communication technology – will force an accounting, and accountability. The misadventures of the political class has awakened a sleeping giant, and it’s on the move.

Those in L3’s trenchant description, those are the present-day Tories. They’ve got theirs, Jack – they have the friends at Court – oops, the friends inside the Beltway – the house in the gated enclave, the tenured position in the education establishment, an income-stream so generous that nothing the current administration or its minions could do would ever reduce them to shopping at Goodwill or Wally-world. They’ve got theirs, so they can cheerfully go on paying lip-service to the principles upon which this nation was founded, while at the same time undermining, denigrating and perverting those principles and standards at every turn. And the ‘chattering classes’ and the ‘intellectual classes, (not to mention the ‘media classes) may continue viciously abusing those ordinary concerned citizens – those who are concerned enough about a suddenly quadrupled national deficit – with baseless accusations of racism, indiscriminate violence, sedition, being the puppets of various interests, and just plain general ignorance. My god, these Tories have the very nerve – accusing the rebellious Tea Partiers deeds which they themselves have committed in the past. Like millions of others, I have been driven ever farther into disrespect – and to open rebellion against our very own Tory class.

I and most of my middle-class friends in the Tea Party movement do not have the princely advantages that these new Tories possess, although many of them are at least comfortable. My own military pension is roughly 25% of what I had in my paycheck my last year of service, and my other income stream is – to say the least, erratic, although I very much enjoy the work that I do to bring it in, of marketing my books and producing blog materiel for pay – I enjoy it because mostly, I am my own boss. I can work at home, taking a break when I feel like it. I do occasionally have to hand-hold clients who fall along the full spectrum from the difficult to the seriously deranged – but that is by my own choice. I work at night, and on weekends, even federal holidays, when a project needs to be finished. I have a certain amount of freedom – perilously maintained, but it is freedom. I answer to my clients and customers, and very rarely to anyone else. And that, I surmise is what the New Tories despise above all: that we would rather control our own lives, even if the actual work is arduous and success not absolutely guaranteed. We are comfortable and independent enough in our lives. We are not clients or dependent upon the modern oligarchs and aristos, or the big government teat – yet, anyway. I will close with another quote: this one from the Old Testament: 1 Kings, 19-18

“Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.”

Time and Memory

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I was momentarily distracted last week by a comment thread at The Belmont Club, when one of the participants made mention of historian Jacques Barzun, who is something like 102 this year. The commenter noted that Mr. Barzun not only remembers Paris during World War I, when the German Army came perilously close to bombarding the place – but how he also remembers conversing with his own then-very-elderly grandmother, whose memories went back to the 1830s. Imagine, being just a step or two removed from such memories. It reminded me also of a conversation with another writer I know, who teaches languages and music, down in Beeville, Texas.

Imagine, he said – someone of our age (we are both in the fifty to sixty spectrum) talking to the oldest person we know – who would be in their nineties. So, their own childhood memories would go back to the early twentieth century – like Mr. Barzun’s. I did have this experience once, when I was just about 18, and because 18-year olds had just then been given the right to vote and it was an election year, I thought I ought to take some interest in politics. Which I did, but it proved to be very fleeting – the interest really didn’t kick in at full-strength until the last year or so. The mild interest of that year took the form of an afternoon at the Republican Party HQ in my home-town, doing what-I-can’t-quite-remember . . . but the other person minding the office that day was an elderly gentleman who said he was ninety-something, had grown up on a ranch in Montana and had been sent to school (a one-room schoolhouse, of course) every day on a horse; a very tall horse, so his father had to lift him up into the saddle, the horse took him to school, and the teacher lifted him down at the other end, and tied up the horse. In the afternoon, the teacher put him up into the saddle – and the operation proceeded in reverse. This would have put those schooldays of his in the late 1880s, at least – but he had some other fascinating yarns, of joining the Army and being a cavalryman in the days before World War I when the cavalry still meant horses. He had been on Black Jack Pershing’s expedition into Mexico, chasing after Pancho Villa, and had deployed to the Western Front as a very new 2nd Lieutenant. I so wish I had written much of this down at the time, or even remembered his name – it was much more fascinating than stuffing envelopes and answering the phone.

But, said my writer friend – now imagine that the oldest person you know, had talked as a child to the oldest person they knew. So, a child of ten or eleven in about 1920 had talked to a ninety-year old person . . . and that person’s memories – since they would have been born in the 1840s – might encompass the Gold Rush, and at the very least, the Civil War. A roll of typescript among some of my Granny Jessie’s papers paralleled that kind of memory-span. In about 1910, two of her aunts were learning to use that newfangled gadget, the typewriter, and as a typing exercise they had interviewed the oldest man in Lionville, Chester County PA. Alas, I do not recall his name either, and the roll of typescript is also long gone (a wildfire which burned my parents’ house pretty well cleaned out all the family memorabilia in 2003) but his first-hand recollections dated from the early 1800s. He told the great-aunts of long-horned wild cattle being brought in from the west, and of working as a carpenter. One of the curious notations was that coffins that were built then were constructed with a peaked lid, a puzzle which had just then been considerable of a mystery to the archeologist excavating Wolstonhome Town, near Jamestown. That design turned out to be the last of an archaic custom, which the archeologist went to a great deal of trouble to unravel – but there it was, testament for the use of an ancient and disused custom, preserved in an old typescript.

Now, let’s get really adventurous – and suppose that that oldest person who talked to the oldest person that you knew, who was born in the 1840s, had talked as a child to the oldest person they knew, who at eighty or ninety years of age in the 1850’s meant they had been born about 1760 – so that their memories would encompass the Revolution. Depending on where they lived, they might have seen George Washington, or his little army of Rebels on the march, heard Paul Revere or William Dawes riding by their house, shouting an alarm, or heard the church-bells ringing to celebrate their victory.

Yes, it is two hundred and change years ago – but to think of it in terms of memories, transmitted across the generations, we are only three steps removed. It isn’t really that long ago at all. History isn’t past – as another historical commentator remarked in another context, certain memories lie at the bottom of our minds, like lees at the bottom of a cup of wine, only waiting to be stirred up again.

Continuing Interesting Stuff at the Milblogger Conference

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Yes, it was a week ago last weekend, but I have several jobs, four books to market, two more to write . . . oh, and a tax bill to pay. So, forgive me for dishing out the good bloggy ice cream in small dishes, ‘kay?

One of the unexpected highlights of the conference was a late addition to the morning panel lineup; this man was almost a proto-blogger: Major Norman Hatch, who as a young NCO and combat cameraman in the Pacific during World War II oversaw the filming of the battle for Tarawa. Greyhawk provided a short version of this video, with the audio turned down, and Major Hatch gave us a live commentary – a sort of directors’ cut.

Anyway, as I have pointed out many times, the military is its whole ‘nother world. I swear, I’ve been convinced for years that most civilians get their ideas about it – not from a genu-wine military person, but from some (usually self-appointed) expert, anointed by the cultural powers that be. Which usually makes those of us who have long been domiciled in the military world just roll our eyes and laugh behind our hands. Or throw something heavy at the television – it all depends. BTW, really perversely-humored military members often amuse themselves by feeding tall tales to said self-appointed experts, just to see if they are going to bite on the tall tale, hook line and sinker. I know they do this – I’ve always called it the Wister Effect.*
Trying to put across something of what the military experience is really like to the average normal civilian is what got me started in mil-blogging, back in the Dark Ages of blogging. And sham-wow! Did Sgt. Stryker’s Daily Brief suddenly have a lot of readers! On one notable occasion just about the time that the drive into Kuwait began, CNN linked to our home page – and the resulting traffic crashed the server. We were included in a short list of mil-blogs listed in a short (is there any other sort?) article in Time Magazine, and Yours Truly was interviewed a couple of times by reporters for national newspapers, who were putting together a story about the Great E-Mail/Milblogging Adventure, and how it was possible for the deployed military to be in such very close contact with their families and friends. All very heady and amusing stuff, this was – but I kept thinking how odd it was that the official military Public Affairs offices seemed to be completely clueless.

Having worked in an airbase PA office, I knew very well that part of the PA staff’s duties was to scan print media for any mention of the service, the particular base, or the military in general. I didn’t think it likely, in other words, that the official military could NOT know about mil-blogs in 2003 – especially since I made a special effort to visit a local PA office and offer to blog about any particular needs the local command had, with regard to deployed troops from that post, or for any casualties they might be caring for. I talked to a civilian in the office – who seemed quite keen, and left my name, email addy and URL for his commander, and never heard another word. Eh – no skin off mine, as the saying goes. But at the first afternoon panel of the Milblog Conference, we had a full brace of commanders – including Admiral J.C. Harvey, Commander U.S. Fleet Forces Command, who is an enthusiastic blogger, and Col. Gregory Breazile, who blogs for the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan.

Obviously, the official blog has arrived; the technology has been embraced by the higher levels. I did get up and asked, precisely when and what event precipitated this interest, when we early bloggers were treated as if we smelled bad, early on. Eh – the answer seemed to be that the very high ranks realized the value of social media fairly early on. One does not achieve the high command rank in the military by being an idiot, by the way. I’ve met some colonels who were dumber than a box of hammers, but every general I ever met personally seemed to be pretty sharp. At the other end of the scale, the very sharpest of the junior ranks had embraced social media, blogging, twittering and youtube almost at once. It was just the intermediate level, or so the Admiral explained, who weren’t quite sure what to do with or about it. This tracked pretty well with my experience, being as the Daily Brief’s founding blogger was a smart-ass Air Force enlisted mechanic who loved to spend his nights on the intertubules. (He also got bored easily, which is why he recruited other writers for his blog after a year.) I have to admit, there is a decidedly different feel to a blog which is there because it’s essential to communicating about the mission, and one that’s a volunteer effort and done for sheer enthusiasm.

Final wrap up tomorrow – stay tuned, sportsfans.

* The Wister Effect: so called after Owen Wister, the writer of The Virginian, who related a story about some cowboys in a small Western town. When some traveling Easterners came to town on the train, and began hyperventilating about the violence and danger in the Wild West, the cowboys obligingly staged a mock-lynching for their edification. Wear your expections too openly – and very likely someone with a perverse sense of humor will make a special effort and arrange to deliver what you were expecting.

Still More of What I Saw @ The Milblogger’s Conference

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There were four panel discussions during Saturday, the one full day of the 5th Annual Milblogger’s Conference – some with panelists present front and center, and a few with either taped, or teleconferenced interviews. All of the panelists and the moderator, Greta Parry (who originated a blog called Kiss my Gumbo) touched upon the use of social media – that is, networking, blogging, tweeting and other uses of the internet in the service of various military enterprises. The first panel discussed the use of social media with regard to various military oriented charities, only one of which had been in existence longer than the last decade or so; the US Navy Memorial in Washington, DC. The VP for Marketing Communications confessed resignedly that she must still print out blogposts and email messages for many of the senior managers to peruse, since they are not exactly comfortable with this internet-thingy. The other organizations, such as Soldier’s Angels grew organically in response to various needs upon being publicized through mil-blogs and email appeals for items to be sent to deployed, hospitalized or disabled military members, or to assist their families. Soldier’s Angels started with family members sending ‘care packages’ to individuals – and then it just sort of snowballed.

Just to illustrate how these things grow: my daughter’s Marine unit deployed to Kuwait very early in 2003, and of course my parents and friends began sending her useful things – snack food and sanitary-wipes, drink mixes and big spray, books and magazines. She wrote to me about a kid in her unit who’s family had his APO address all mixed up, with the result that he was over there for almost two months and hadn’t gotten a letter or a care package from anyone. I wrote about this on my own blog, with the result that LCpl. Varnum was immediately adopted by about forty different people, and got so many boxes of goodies that there was no room for him to sleep in his little pup-tent shelter. My daughter’s unit was the recipient of boxes of books collected by another blogger, and a case of moon-pies from a lady in Virginia . . . eventually they had so much in the way of home comforts that I began referring people who emailed me asking to adopt-a-troop to Soldier’s Angels, which was formally organized and launched by this time. The milblogs have been supporting Soldier’s Angels every since. One of their big projects was to provide voice-activated laptop computers for the seriously injured – and another project I clearly recall was to collect clothing; underwear and sweats, and tee-shirts, for injured troops who had been medivacked from the field on a stretcher to hospitals in Germany to recover – and separated from all of their friends and possessions, had nothing but hospital PJs and robes to stand up in. Kind of hard, walking across the post to the PX in your slippers to buy more clothes; I suppose this problem must have come up now and again before, but in this case, Soldier’s Angels had an immediate solution.

I cut a certain “Doonesbury” strip out of the local newspaper the day it appeared, and it’s been on the front of my refrigerator ever since; the final panel of the strip contained the punchline. “Is it true that only 13% of American kids can find Iraq on a map?” And the reply from a cynical reporter character, “Yeah, but all 13% are Marines.”
During the first session, someone pointed out Garry Trudeau, among the conferees . . . yeah, that Garry Trudeau, the Doonesbury guy, who was not the very last person I would have expected to find at a military blogger’s conference – I’d say he’s have been among a list of a hundred or so. But it seems that he does a lot of quiet good for veterans, as well as providing a mil-blog venue. And yes, I did go up to him in the interval and tell him about the “13%” comic strip, still bravely magneted to my refrigerator door. Told him that he could have made another mint or so, selling the original art, or even prints of that strip. Just about every mother of a Marine would want one. Alas, he donated all the originals, all at once. (Yeah, I talked a little about my own books – do I look like an idiot! It’s all about the marketing, baby!)

The mild thrill from the second session came in a conference call from Afghanistan, from Michael Yon, who as of last weekend was lurking in the vicinity of Kandahar. Michael has been operating as a freelance journalist, covering the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for a good few years, now. He is supported through donations from his readers; all the milbloggers know of Mike Yon – the top story on his blog today is about one of those efforts to collect donations for a unit, or a place or a purpose . . . and how they expand. He thinks there is a ‘surge’ beginning to build up a head of steam in that part of Afghanistan; we’ll know by Christmas what kind of effect will be had by it. His next project is a means of introducing little biogas fuel generators to Afghanistan, in the hopes of replacing scarce wood as a fuel for cooking: off to Nepal to research on how they do it there. Apparently biogas generated from waste material is being widely used in Nepal . . . the technology is fairly simple, and straightforward. It would save the trees and save the time spent searching for a few little sticks of dry wood. I can see the sense in this – one of my books about the far west mentions that it was the constant quest by settlers for wood for fuel and for building that alienated the Plains Indians, at least as much as the ravages of buffalo hunters . . .

Seriously off-topic – more to follow, about the conference. Most amusingly – and I am kicking myself for not taking a picture of some of them doing so – about a third of them were tweeting and blogging each session as it happened. I did not have the advantage of a Blackberry, or i-Phone, laptop or notebook computer that many of the other conferees had, so I have to catch up days later.

More of What I Saw at the Milblogger Conference

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Milblogging – alas, I have had to explain that concept to a number of my purely civilian contacts over the last few weeks. Just a plain old military blogger. A blogger on active duty, a veteran, a family member or someone just interested in aspects of the military life, all of whom are blogging about their experiences and life in the military, around the military, or as the military touches on their life. To mainstream America, since the end of the draft, this is terra incognita. If all one knows about the life military is what can be gleaned from current movies, television and popular culture, then there might just as well be dragons out there over the edge in DOD land. Another language, of slang and shorthand, of instantly understood references, certain subtle habits of manners and bearing, the quiet display of badges, rings, patches, souvenir coins or tattoos – all of which serve as tells to other residents (or past residents) of DOD land. Most pure civilians usually miss the ‘tells’ – which is why fake veterans will fool them practically all the time.

So, I have been a milblogger since 16 August, 2002, which is the Dark Ages of blogging, practically. I was invited to join this blog when it was still called Sgt. Stryker’s Daily Brief, at a time when there was a sudden and increased national interest in the military experience during the ramp-up to the Iraq War. SSDB was one of only a handful of milblogs carried on the Instapundit blog-roll. I had just barely discovered this newfangled internet thingy, I had a background in public affairs, wanted an outlet for my own writing . . . and my daughter was a Marine, heading towards a deployment in Kuwait and eventually, Iraq in the spring and summer of 2003. Comparing notes at the Milblog Conference, I discovered that the date of my first blog-post predated everyone elses’ by at least six months.

That entry is included, for your benefit, as a historical document –

Sgt. Mom’s Ancient Tech Story:

So the new colonel commanding was getting a tour of the AFRTS station, from the Station Manager. The colonel looks through the soundproofed glass window into the radio studio, and there is the on-duty DJ, stripped to his underwear, sitting cross-legged on the turntable*, going round and round and round. The colonel, slightly-bug-eyed, turns to the Station Manager and demands
“What the %#@&&& is he doing?
The Station Manager shrugs and says,
“Thirty-three and a third.” **

(footnotes appended for those under the age of 30ish)
* Probably a heavy, 16″ Gates turntable. They were used to play “records” also called ETs, or Electrical Transcriptions, which in the days when the only body parts being pierced were ears, were 16 or 14 inches across.
** Revolutions per minute. 16-inch records were played at 78 RPMs, 14-inch records (which replaced them) at 33 1/3

Yeah, I’ve gone a long way since then, although the audience laughed their hummm-hums off, when I re-told it at the conference. A good few didn’t even need the footnotes – but don’t let that lead you to assume that all attending were old fogies . . . I met a trio of earnest young college students, two veterans and one heading military-wards. A bit of an interview to follow about them, over the next two days. (Look, am I a public utility? I produce good bloggy ice-cream when I can!) There was also this young lady present, who is not only extraordinarily pleasant and patriotic, but possesses a charmingly retro aesthetic sense – as well as a sense of duty. (No, I never minded girlie pinups – as long as I could admire the equivalent and aesthetically pleasing male form . . .)

But enough of the wander down blogging-memory lane, more observations of the 5th Annual Milblogger Conference. It is the very first one which I have attended, which made for a curious experience. I have ‘known’ some of the other bloggers nearly as long as I’ve blogged and consider them as friends and fellow veterans, but this was the first time I ever met them face to face. I tend to think of them first as they named themselves with their original nom du blog – Greyhawk, Blackfive, Baldilocks – rather than their given names. Most of the early milbloggers chose to do so, not wanting to put absolutely everything out there.

Another curiosity – I’d guess that a little under a half of the conference attendees were women: fair number of veterans, or DOD civilian employees, some from various military-oriented charitable organizations, or military spouses. There were present, though, a fair number of active-duty men with the high-and tight haircut – that which makes them look as if they had shaved their heads entirely, and then parked a small, short-furred rodent on top. On the first panel of the conference – a selection of early bloggers, three of us were Air Force or AF veterans (Baldi, me, and Greyhawk – all NCOs), one Army veteran – Blackfive, and one Marine officer – “Taco”. (His last name is Bell.) This distribution drew some comment from the audience: I have no explanation for this. Another very early blogger was a Reserve Navy officer, Lt. Smash. My purely amateur and scientific wild-ass guess about this distribution is something along the lines of the Air Force and the Navy being more technically oriented, and drawing in a more middle-class and educated recruit. Another curiosity is that four of us have written or edited books, and “Taco” is planning to write one as soon as he retires and can uncork his best stories. Eh – one of my best-received one-liners: blogging is a gateway drug. (Did I mention that I do have a mad compulsion to entertain and inform? Laugher from an audience – manna to the starving!) More to follow, including how I had the neck ask a blunt question of a 4-star and to tell Garry Trudeau about the newspaper clipping that has been on the front of my refrigerator for almost eight years now – I promise. Real life and bills to pay will interfere. Really.

I’m from the Gov’t, and am here to help you….

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*sigh* I really, really hate dealing with the IRS.

In 2009, I bought a house. Now, I’ve been renting since 2001, so I definitely qualify for the first-time home-buyer’s tax credit. To get that, you have to paper-file, and include a copy of hte settlement document. I did all that, and overnighted my return to them on Jan 25, to make up for the fact that paper-filing takes longer.

Each week, I went to IRS.gov and checked “Where’s my refund,” and each week, I got a response of “We have not received your return” even though it was signed for on Jan 26. Finally, on Feb 20, they admitted they had my return and were processing it. If they found no problems, I could expect my refund by March 30. On March 15, they said I could expect my refund on April 13. On March 30, they said I could expect my refund on April 27.

April 2 was my payday from work. I checked my bank balance online, and it was higher than it should have been from receiving my paycheck. So I looked at the detail, and there was a deposit from the IRS, but it was NOT for the full amount of my refund. So I head back out to IRS.gov and “where’s my refund,” and read “We decreased the amount of your refund. You will receive a letter dated April 12 explaining why.” Great. I didn’t need a letter from them – the refund was exactly $8000 less than I expected, but I had to wait until I received a letter dated April 12 before I could call and ask them why they don’t think I qualify for the home-buyer’s tax credit.

The letter came in yesterday’s mail. It tells me they think I have a prior home-ownership that would make me ineligible, and gives me a number to call.

So I call them, and spend 5 minutes on hold after telling the computer all my business so it knows I’m real. The nice lady on the other end of the phone explains that she can’t help me – she has to transfer me to tax law. Back on hold, with an estimated wait time of over 30 minutes. I hang up, figuring I’ll try again at 8am, when they won’t be so busy.

Call back this morning, expecting that the computer is routing me to the correct person to help with my issue. Lady answers the phone, and the conversation goes like this:

IRS: Can I help you?
Me: Yes, I need to have someone explain why they disallowed my homebuyer’s tax credit.
IRS: Did you get a letter from us?
Me: Yes.
IRS: Can you read me the letter?
Me: Reads the first 2 paragraphs of the letter.
IRS: There’s your answer right there. If you can’t understand that, I don’t know how we can make it any clearer.

Continue reading →

What I Saw at the Milblogger Convention

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Let’s see – I experienced air travel at the end of the first decade of this century. I can report that practically every shred of comfort, convenience, and excitement has been removed from the travel experience itself with almost surgical precision – although the ability to check in from your home computer and print up your boarding pass is a welcome development, and the lavish proliferation of food courts at the major hubs is similarly welcome. Especially as it seems that a tiny bag of peanuts, or a cookie and some juice or a soft-drink of choice is about the only thing served to coach passengers on short haul flights. I expect that the next step in the progression will be that the cabin staff will no longer actually hand them out from the narrow metal cart hauled up and down the aisles. Within a short time, I think they will probably hand them out after they swipe your boarding pass at the departure gate, and save the cabin staff considerable trouble. (It’s still better than MAC flights, though. Not much, but still better.)

The Atlanta airport is presently so big that it could possibly secede from Atlanta proper, and set up as its own municipality.

The area around the mid-Atlantic coast is green, green, green. Even from the air, you can make out vivid blobs of pink from the cherry trees in bloom. The dogwood trees are in bloom, too, and all along the parkway between Baltimore and Washington DC, there were tangles of purple wisteria. It’s very nice, to have belts of trees, along the parkways and highways, separating the housing tracts, warehouses and whatever from the highway. Looking at the ass-end of a strip-mall as you drive along is not aesthetically appealing. Sad lack of ground-growing wildflowers, though. I looked at the verges, which had grass and dandelions in plenty, but not much else, and thought, “Dandelions! Dandelions!!!That’s all you got, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia! Pah!”

I have seen the Washington Monument at a distance and close-up and from many angles, as I suspect the shuttle-bus driver actually circled through downtown DC several times. I have also seen the Capitol Building, and the White House, inspected the façade of the Department of Commerce building, and the quaint brick sidewalks and cobbled streets of Georgetown. We were stuck in traffic, so I had plenty of time to contemplate all of these structures. Teensy brick three and four-story townhouses in Georgetown about the width of a small yawn apparently sell for $500,000 when they come on the market.

This is a beautiful time to visit that part of the country; I am told that only the autumn foliage equals spring for sheer natural spectacle.

The Westin Arlington Gateway is a very pleasant place to stay, as hotels go, although slightly on the pricy side. The rooms are mega-comfortable, being designed around a tasteful luxury-spa theme, with lots of pale green, sage and white. The beds are piled with pillows and a thick comforter – all in pristine white. They have their own very special brand of scented white-tea-aloe soap and toiletries – and have them for sale in regular sizes for those who just can’t take away enough of the little individual bottles.

Contra the usual expectation of bloggers being socially inept loners and introverts, who cannot relate face to face to others of their species – the military version appear to be exuberant extroverts . . . even without having had much alcohol to drink.

No one that I talked to at the conference had been mil-blogging longer than I had. I started in August, 2002 – the Dark Ages of mil-blogging – and am still at it, although I have drifted into wider circles than a strictly military/veteran focus. Which makes me rather famous in those circles, although no one asked for my autograph.

To Be Continued – Garry Trudeau, a blogging 4-star admiral, the most gullible troop in all the world, three young men from Hillsdale, and other observations from the 5th Annual Milblogging Conference.

A Pair of Poopies

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Actually they are really puppies, according to the strict definition of an immature, immensely appealing and sweetly clumsy canine. There are two of them, though. And they do poop. Dogs in good health do this, with joyful abandon, although how joyful an event this is for the human who collects it all up and disposes of it in the proper receptacle is a matter of considerable debate. When laboring under the suspicion that one of our dogs has ingested something unhealthy (like a sock, a rubber chewy-toy, or a wad of fiber stuffing from a comforter, pillow or doggie bed) having it appear out the other end commingled with the normal fecal material – or indeed, having anything appear from the other end – is considerable of a relief, for both the dog and the human. There’s another expensive veterinary/surgical bill avoided.

Anyway, my dearest daughter, who I swear has never laid eyes on an animal that she didn’t immediately fall in love with and bring home – found this pair, gamboling happily on a deserted suburban street in our neighborhood, last Saturday morning. (I found it, Mom – can we keep it? For a little while? I promise, I will take care of it – really, I will!) This has happened with dismaying frequency, over the last fifteen years, reaching some kind of record one weekend a couple of years ago, when we set our personal-best stray dog-return record – four of them, two on Saturday and two on Sunday. We find a dog – usually a singleton – wandering around, unescorted by an owner. Sometimes these dogs are wearing a with collar and ID and rabies vaccination tags, sometimes not. A collar and tags is an easy fix, since all that needs to be done is to call the veterinary clinic which issued the tag and tell them the number. With fiendish regularity, this happens most usually about mid-Saturday, or even Sunday of a week with a holiday Monday, so we are stuck with the stranger for at least two days.

Dogs who are beloved pets have a sort of aura about them. They are socialized; they have manners, and do not pick fights with our own dogs and cats. They are well-kept, well-fed and generally well-groomed. Quite often they are older animals – It’s been our experience that no one intentionally dumps an older dog – in fact, the dog with the graying muzzle is usually especially cherished, and has owners who are frantically searching for him or her. Sometimes, they have come from very far outside our neighborhood – a big dog can go a pretty fair distance if panicked. A dog without tags or chips presents a different set of problems: sometimes, they are so small and timid that you know they have not come from very far. In that case, it is a matter of going around with the dog on a leash, asking everyone we meet if they recognize it.

And then there is the routine of putting up posters on the mailboxes and light-posts, and the free ad in the newspaper, registering with a couple of local services and websites, putting up flyers at several local veterinarians . . . all those things that are advised, when trying to return a lost pet. Only in this case, it is not working. We have had them now for five days. We can’t even properly ID what breed they are – boxer or boxer mix? Pit-mix? Shar Pei? No one recognizes them. No one has called, or emailed, to claim them. They have no chips. They aren’t at the cute puppy phase of development; they are at the rambunctious adolescent stage. The very dismaying possibility now is that that someone just got fed up, drove through our neighborhood and dumped them. Which I find absolutely horrific – because they are sweet and endearing dogs, who have easily grasped the concept of ‘sit’ and ‘stay,’ even if only for a few nanoseconds.

We can’t keep them – my house and yard are tiny. We already have two dogs and barely manage to keep them fed, let alone the matter of veterinary care. The local Humane Society has wants us to call every morning at a certain time to see if they have spaces for them – and they also charge a fee to turn in animals. The Animal Defense League also has a fee, although they call it a ‘donation’ per animal; they have a waiting list also. Which is basically no help to us at all, if we can’t find another home soon. We can’t afford to keep them for very much longer, we barely can afford the fees and to feed them during the wait to turn them over to either. The city pound is just a no-starter: no chips, no tags and no one claiming them means they will be put down within three days and it is a hell-hole anyway. It would be kinder just to have them put down ourselves, and I am so stressed out about it that I can hardly think straight. How dare their owner not bother to be responsible – how dare they put it all off onto us?

Milblogger Conference 2010 – Update

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OK – so it doesn’t look as if it will be a road trip, after all. There are some serious problems with the GG (sigh!) so that planned little jaunt is out. I’ll be traveling by regular airline on Friday morning (very early!) to Arlington, for the Milblogger Conference at the Westin Arlington Gateway, and coming back the same way on Sunday afternoon.
I am still holding off on a hotel reservation there – hoping to reduce expenses (hey, we’re in a recession, dammit! And there is work that I have done/services provided that I haven’t been paid for yet, so I must economize until those chintzy b**tards come through! ) so, if anyone of the femalion or family-oriented persuasion and a non-smoker wants to share a room this Friday and Saturday at the Gateway (or other nearby establishment) let me know! Like, ASAP!

You’re Doing What?

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That seems to be the response from people who met me later in life.  People who knew me when I was younger, think it’s kind of normal.

Last week I started a program at a local medical vocational college to become a certified massage therapist.

It has a lot to do with this mind/body/spirit thing that I’ve stopped a started over too many years of my life.  I’ve begun down the road to get those three pieces parts of me integrated and then I let one thing or another distract me off that path.  I’m starting to feel like I’m at a point in my life that it’s now or never.  It’s something I’ve always wanted to do and now that I’m closer to 50 than to 40, so I’m becoming very aware that one of these days I’m going to run out of tomorrows.

I’ve been pretty good the past three months about keeping my commitment to do some T`ai Chi or Chi Gung every morning before I get ready for work.  I’m pretty sure that I’ll be adding Yoga to that here pretty soon as well.  I’ve got arthritis well throughout my lower back, knees and ankles, the result of years at a desk and of doing stupid things with my body and not listening when I was told to “let things heal before you etc.”  Beautiful Wife and I both go to a massage therapist when we can afford one and for both of us, the results have been the same.  A massage therapist has done more for what ails us than any doctor ever has.  This way I can get my wife on a table more than once a month and I may be getting a new career.  I may not do it full time but I can see me doing it part time.

I have to tell you the truth, it’s pretty hard.  This may very well be the hardest thing I’ve ever taken on.  It’s sort of like the NCO Academy in that it’s information with a firehouse and there’s a LOT of material.  I’m exhausted, pretty sure I’ve taken on too much, and I haven’t been this happy in years.  I’ve spent too much time in the past couple of years, coming home, turning on the TV and falling into my recliner.  I don’t know much, but I do know that kind of behavior is pretty much what took my Dad out.  I’m much better when I’m doin’ something.